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“One of the most powerful voices of the Fringe this year” – EdFringe Review 2019

“Genevieve Carver is a stunning poet – her writing strikes sharply and with intention.  A Beautiful Way to Be Crazy summons an electrically charged landscape that charts how women experience the male-dominated music industry with the lyrical integrity you’d expect from Carver.  These poems jump off the page….a difficult book to put down.  I can’t remember the last time reading a poetry collection was this much fun: the writing is damn clever, fiercely honest and speaks to the heart of its reader.” Ciaran Hodgers

At the time of publication, 70% of music acts in the UK are all-male. Based on interviews with female and non-binary practitioners across the music industry, A Beautiful Way to be Crazy is a tale of growing up, finding a voice, and listening to Joni Mitchell records. It was originally a live show by Genevieve and her band of multi-instrumentalist musicians The Unsung.

Expect to meet the spirits of Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone and Delia Derbyshire as Genevieve navigates her way through school bullies, the pressures of mainstream media, anxiety and pregnancy scares, but comes out smiling.

“Carver exudes a warm humility that perfectly complements the fragile and overwhelmingly human spirit at the heart of her story telling”–The Reviews Hub

Genevieve Carver is a Sheffield-based poet searching for the humanity amidst the chaos. Her work has been appeared in publications including Iota, Envoi, and The North, and her first collection will be published by Verve Poetry Press, in February 2020.

Genevieve read some of her poems here last year as part of the launch for Waymaking.  We are delighted that she is back to celebrate the publication of her first volume of poetry.  Do come and join us for a discussion of women in the music industry and hear the poems inspired by her interviews and her stage show with The Unsung.  Genevieve will be chatting to Marie Thompson as well as reading from her collection of poems.  Marie is an ex member of the bookshop staff and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lincoln’s School of Film and media.

Marie  is the author of Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism (Bloomsbury, 2017) and co-editor of Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience (Bloomsbury, 2013). Marie co-leads, with Annie Goh, Sonic Cyberfeminisms – an ongoing project interrogating the relationships between gender, sound and technology.